The present invention relates to a presentation apparatus, commonly referred to as a prompter, which allows a speaker to look at notes while at the same time presenting a lecture, for example.
Conventionally, when a lecture or speech is so long that the speaker cannot memorize all of its contents, he usually speaks referring to a prepared text, gists, keywords, drawings, etc. (hereinafter referred to simply as a prepared text) placed on a lecture table. In such an instance, the speaker cannot always keep eye contact with the audience which is said to be most important in the speech, and hence he inevitably fails to attract the audience. When such a text is not prepared, the speaker may sometimes forget to tell necessary information or fail to make a correct report.
As a solution to this problem, there has been proposed an apparatus of the type wherein a CRT or similar display unit is disposed near the lecture table at a position unseen from the audience and a text on the display screen of the CRT is reflected by a half mirror disposed across the line of sight joining the speaker and the audience so that the speaker is allowed to look at the reflected image of the text and the audience in the same direction. With such an apparatus, the speaker is capable of running his eyes over the text while at the same time keeping eye contact with the audience. In the case of actually employing such a conventional apparatus, the text that is to be displayed on the display unit is written on a continuous sheet of paper in advance, the continuous sheet is wound around a paper feeder and an image of the text captured by a video camera on a page-wise basis is displayed on the CRT during the speech. Accordingly, the speaker or his assistant needs to repeat pausing the paper feeder upon each display of a desired page of the text and driving the paper feeder to proceed to the next page upon completion of the desired one. Moreover, he may sometimes need to search for a desired page by rewinding or fast forwarding the text through manipulation of the paper feeder. It is not easy for him, however, to repeat actuating and pausing the paper feeder in search of the desired image while speaking to the audience. In addition, the text must be prepared in a form that permits its image capturing by the video camera, and it is not easy to correct, modify and edit the text once it has been prepared.